Murder Has a Sweet Tooth (22 page)

It didn’t take a detective to see where this was going. “You think . . . Edward?”

“He’s a good friend of Celia and Scott’s. He’s been around here enough to know that the sauna’s been acting funny and maybe that means he knows how to make it do whatever it did to get so hot so fast. If he knew you were inside and if he knew where the lock was . . . well, really, that wouldn’t be all that hard because the lock was right there on that big rock outside the door of the sauna and anybody could have seen it.” Her voice was as watery as her eyes. “I don’t know how, but he know why you’ve been hanging around, Annie. He must know you’ve been asking questions. You know, about Vickie’s murder.”

I followed my own advice and talked out as much as I could of what I thought Beth was thinking, just to see where it would take me. “You think Edward knows I’m a PI. And that he knows I want to find out who killed Vickie. And that he tried to kill me because he thinks I’m getting close to the truth because . . .” No dice. As much as I tried, I knew I couldn’t get past the very real objections to mesh with Beth’s theory. “There’s no way. He has an alibi. I checked it out. He was at that coaches’ meeting the night Vickie was killed, and according to the minutes of the meeting, he didn’t leave. He was there at the beginning, and he was there at the end.” I thought about everything Tyler had said about murder. And marriage. “The police think it’s somehow possible that Edward might have murdered Vickie, but . . . But you think . . . you think he killed her, too?”

“I don’t just think it,” Beth said, and she nodded like a bobble-head. “I know it for certain. And”—she burst into tears—“it’s all my fault!”

IT TOOK A WHILE TO GET BETH CALMED DOWN. I
found a plastic cup, poured some water, and made her drink, then I led her into the playroom and plunked her down on one of those video chairs. I sat in the one next to her, already worried about how I was going to get out of it again. When it stopped wobbling enough for me to think straight, I got down to business. I pinned her with a look and wondered if she could even see me through her teary eyes.

“You seem pretty certain about Edward being guilty,” I said. “You want to tell me why? And why do you think it’s your fault?”

Beth started crying all over again. “Because . . .” The word bubbled past her tears. “Because I’m the one who told him about Vickie and Alex.”

“Whoa!” I held up one hand to stop her in her tracks. There was only so much I could process at any one time, and this was a biggie. I leaned forward. My chair swayed. “You knew about Vickie and Alex? But I thought one of the rules was—”

“That we never discussed what we did on Tuesday nights, not even with each other. That’s right.” Beth wiped a finger under nose. “We always followed the rule, too. Every one of us. But then a few weeks ago, Vickie and I were working on the girls’ Girl Scout cookie project. You know, tallying up sales and filling out order forms and deciding where we were going to put all those cases of cookies when they were delivered. I admit it, I was pretty overwhelmed by the whole thing. That kind of stuff always knocks me for a loop.”

“And Vickie?”

“Vickie was never fond of numbers. She used to say . . .” Beth smiled through her tears. “Vickie used to say that the only good number is a dead number. Silly, but that gives you some idea about how she felt about math. But that day, even though we were counting and adding and balancing orders against how much money people owed, Vickie was in such a good mood, I couldn’t believe it. She was humming and smiling. I asked her what was up. And she said . . .”

“Alex.” Beth didn’t need to confirm or deny. Apparently the way Vickie felt about Alex meshed with the way he felt about her. And the timing sounded right, too. According to Alex, he’d been meeting Vickie at Swallows for a few weeks.

Beth plucked at the skirt of her jumper. “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispered. “Nobody ever meant it to. Going out on Tuesdays and meeting guys, it was just supposed to be a way for us to be ourselves. You know, without even our friends looking over our shoulders or judging our behavior. Nobody was ever supposed to fall in love.”

It wasn’t what she said, it was the way she said it. And the way she looked when she was talking, too. Suddenly there was a whole new sadness in Beth’s eyes. When she leaned back into the video chair, she looked tired and disappointed.

Call me Dr. Phil, I knew exactly where this was going. “Vickie wasn’t the only one, was she? You fell in love with someone you met on a Tuesday night, too.”

One corner of Beth’s mouth thinned. “I never told anyone. Not anyone but Vickie. I mean, it was perfect, wasn’t it? She had a secret and so did I. And we were both dying to share our news. Oh.” She blanched. “I didn’t mean that. Not about the dying.”

“It’s OK. I know what you mean. You were excited. What did Vickie tell you about Alex?”

She shrugged. “Not much. She said he was handsome and funny, and that he had the most incredible accent. He’s Scottish, you know.”

I did. I nodded.

“Vickie said she knew we weren’t supposed to go back to the same bar two weeks in a row, but that she just couldn’t help it. She couldn’t wait to see Alex again. I told her . . .” She looked away and lowered her voice, embarrassed. “I told her that’s exactly how I felt about Jack. You know, the guy I met.”

“Was Vickie going to divorce Edward? Do you think that’s why he killed her?”

“I don’t think Vickie and Alex’s relationship had gotten that far. I mean, I know it hadn’t between me and Jack. It was just fun, you know? Exciting. I loved the thought that he would be waiting for me every Tuesday at Preston’s Colonial House. Don’t get the wrong idea!” she added quickly. “It’s not that I don’t love Michael to pieces. I do. I love him. And the kids. I adore my kids. I love the life we have together. But being with Jack . . .” A shiver snaked over her shoulders. “Being with Jack makes me feel alive and excited. That’s what Vickie said about spending time with Alex, too. That’s why . . .” Beth stared straight ahead at the blank TV screen. Color raced into her cheeks. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “You’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you?”

“I can’t make that promise. At least not until you tell me more. But I can . . .” I reached out to touch a hand to her arm. My chair bucked, and maybe I had some residual weakness from the sauna incident; my head spun and so did the room. I waited until it settled down before I said, “If it doesn’t have anything to do with solving the case, I swear I’ll never breathe a word. If it does, I’ll tell only the people who absolutely have to know. If you have a secret, Beth, it’s safe with me.”

I guess I’m pretty convincing. Or maybe I just have an honest face. Beth sighed and said, “Jack and I wanted to spend a night together. I know, I know . . . I know it’s sleazy. And some people would say it’s wrong. But I wasn’t talking about running off with him and leaving my family and never taking care of them again. It was just one night.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “It was just supposed to be one, fun night.”

None of this meshed with the way I thought about Beth. But then, if I’d learned nothing else in the detective business, it should have been not to judge a book—or a person—by its cover. Embroidered teddy bears sometimes masked the beating of a passionate heart. “What happened?” I asked.

“I couldn’t pull it off on my own. You know what I mean.” I didn’t, but I didn’t let on. “I told Vickie what Jack and I were planning. I asked her to help me out. I told her that I was going to tell Michael that after cooking class that Tuesday, I was going over to Vickie’s to help with the Girl Scout cookie order. That way, I could sneak back into the house early the next morning, climb into bed, and Michael would never know the difference. I’d just tell him that I’d gotten home from Vickie’s really late.”

“Did it work?”

Beth’s expression soured. “Yes. And no. My Jeremy called Vickie’s that Tuesday night I was with Jack. And Vickie told him I wasn’t there.”

“But why? You were friends. Why would Vickie—”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I mean, I loved Vickie to pieces, but she could be bitchy with the best of them. I think she was jealous. She knew what Jack and I had planned that night—the suite at the Ritz, the champagne, the candlelit dinner—and she didn’t have the nerve to do anything like that with Alex. She didn’t have the guts to have any sort of real relationship with him. And she saw that I was willing to take a chance. She wanted Michael to find out what I was up to.”

“And did he?”

“Michael?” Beth’s laugh was watery. “Michael’s easy to fool. I didn’t know any of this was going on, of course, so the next morning when I got up and Michael asked me where I was when Jeremy called, I’ll tell you, it really knocked me for a loop. I was so nervous, I dropped the box of cereal I was holding and spilled Cheerios all over the floor. Good thing, too. By the time I was done cleaning them up, I had come up with a story for Michael. I just told him that Vickie was all mixed up, that by the time Jeremy called, I’d already left Vickie’s and that I stopped to see another friend on the way home.” She waved a hand. “He bought it hook, line, and sinker. Besides, Michael’s been so preoccupied with the whole thing about getting a promotion, I don’t think he would have noticed if I walked into the kitchen that morning wearing the same see-through red negligee I wore for Jack the night before.”

That was more information than I needed. At the same time I tried to erase the picture from my head, I glommed onto part of what she said. Thinking about that piece of the puzzle was better than wondering if see-through red negligees came with embroidered teddy bears.

I narrowed my eyes and gave Beth a careful look. “Are you telling me—”

“I mean I was pissed, that’s what I mean.” Beth shot out of her chair, paced to the far side of the room, and came back again. “I was so mad at Vickie for what she tried to do to me that I called Edward and I . . .” She bucked up her courage. “I told him everything. Everything I knew about Alex and Vickie.”

“Wow.” It was anticlimactic at best, but I couldn’t help myself. I pulled myself out of my chair, too. Or at least I tried. It took a couple pushes and a whole lot of thigh muscle twinging before I was on my feet. “That’s why you think Edward killed Vickie. He knew she was seeing Alex.”

“Uh-huh.” Beth clutched her hands together at her waist. “And I just figured they’d have some big fight and that would be the end of it. But then Vickie ended up dead.”

“And Michael ended up with a promotion.”

Beth looked miserable before. Now she looked positively wretched. The waterworks started again. “Yes, yes, I admit it. I’m a low-down dirty scumbag. See, what I did is I mentioned something to Edward at the funeral, something about how much Michael deserved that promotion and how it would be smart if Edward gave it to him. And I tried to be really cool when I said it, you know? I didn’t come right out and say
or else
. I was calm and collected. But I guess my hints weren’t good enough. Edward acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. So I wrote him a note. And I couldn’t make it look suspicious, so I put it inside a sympathy card to him and mailed it to the house. I told him he had to give Michael that job, that if he didn’t, I’d go to the cops and tell them that he knew Vickie was spending her Tuesdays with Alex. It sounds terrible, I know, but Michael’s worked so hard and that whole thing about that big scandal that he was responsible for . . . none of that was true. He’s a good man.”

“And you were feeling guilty for stepping out on him.”

She nodded. “I figured getting that promotion for him was the least I could do for Michael. And . . .” She twisted the skirt of her jumper in nervous fingers. “I made Edward let Jeremy play in the soccer games, too.”

So I was right about the blackmail. It made sense from every angle. I shifted my gaze back to Beth. “And now?” I asked.

“Now you’d better be careful,” she wailed. “Because if Edward knows that you know he killed Vickie, he’s going to try to kill you again.”